News Pix: America’s Cup, Morgan Fire, Whales in Monterey Bay (More)

Emirates Team New Zealand swept two more America’s Cup races on Thursday, giving the Kiwis a 6-0 lead over the Oracle Team. The Kiwis are close to winning the Cup, needing only three more races to win. Oracle, on the other hand, would have to win 10 races to prevail. The American team has been hindered by a penalty imposed for illegally altering boats in earlier regattas. It must still win another race before it can begin to score points in the finals. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

The Morgan Fire broke out near Mount Diablo State Park on Sunday, Sept. 8. It quickly grew, burning more than 3,000 acres. Firefighters now have the blaze 95 percent contained and are beginning to demobilize fire crews. (Photo courtesy of Karl Frankowski, @karlfrankowsk)

A humpback whale calf breaches in Monterey Bay. It’s a great week for whale sightings as the huge mammals pursue large runs of anchovies that are also attracting sea lions, brown pelicans and other predators to the area. (Ryan Shorey/Monterey Bay Whale Watch)

The California Legislature voted to rename the west span of the Bay Bridge after Willie Brown, former Assembly speaker, former San Francisco mayor, newspaper pundit and best connected of lawyers. Brown was thrilled with the move: “This is the only thing that any of us know of any real significance universal that’s named after a person of color,” he said. Not everyone is as thrilled about the renaming — Gov. Brown, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board all gave the idea a thumbs-down. (Lois Elling/Flickr)

The 39th annual Solano Stroll on Sunday was another glorious day of community gathering. The East Bay’s largest street festival, hosted jointly by Albany and Berkeley, featured 500 street vendors, as well as all the merchants that line Solano Avenue’s 26 blocks. (Nancy Rubin/Berkeleyside)

Author

Katrina Schwartz

Katrina Schwartz is a journalist based in San Francisco. She's worked at KPCC public radio in LA and has reported on air and online for KQED since 2010. She's a staff writer for KQED's education blog MindShift.